For a customer interested in borrowing money, it becomes more and more important to provide sufficient securities. While banking and other financial institutions usually address customers who are interested in borrowing a large sum of money in exchange for considerable securities like, for example, real estate, they usually do not address the interests and needs of so-called small borrowers. For these, pawn shops provide an additional source of credit. A pawn shop offers secured loans to people with items of personal property used as collateral. Pawning an item for a loan implies that the customer, or pawner, delivers the item to the pawn shop. Within a certain period of time, the pawner may purchase the item back. If the loan is not paid back within the time period or, if applicable, the time period is not extended, the pawned item will be offered for sale by the pawn shop. The pawn shop may, for example, auction off the pawned item after the time period expires.
Using the services of conventional pawn shops usually brings about the inconvenience to the customer that he has to bring or send the item to the pawn shop before the pawn shop decides to make an offer on the item. Moreover, having brought the item to the pawn shop for inspection, the pawn shop usually makes only one offer which the customer may accept or not.